Appreciation
by Hadican
Summary: "Otou-san, why are you wearing my apron, why is the sink smoking…and is that batter on the walls?" In which the other three members of the Kurosaki household try to show their appreciation to their light-haired sister and daughter turned caregiver. One Shot.
**Author's Note:** Decided to make a one shot focusing on the Kurosaki family, per usual, but this time with actual fluffy/happy moments. Retention just got updated so I thought I should post this one as well, y'know, to offset the somber tone the other story has. Hope you enjoy!

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Karin was the look out, that had been established since day one, and nobody objected to the idea. She shared a room with Yuzu, and she was pretty good at keeping her sister occupied.

Ichigo was the supervisor. His job was to make sure that their father did not, under any circumstances, ruin this attempt at showing their appreciation. The idiot could breathe wrong and the whole kitchen would be ignited in flames.

Isshin was the designated cook. Foolish perhaps, but he was the best shot they had at making a decent meal for Yuzu. The old fool had somehow squeezed himself into Yuzu's signature yellow apron which Ichigo immediately berated him for. All he got for his efforts was his father childishly sticking out his tongue at him. He wanted to kick him but all they had to do was stick to the plan and everything should go smoothly.

Like every other plan it did not survive contact with the enemy.

That enemy being a mixer that had been in the process of blending batter for pan cakes. Had they ever fixed pancakes before? No, but to be fair they hadn't cooked a lot of things. After a quick search on the internet, because lord knew that was the only way they were cooking anything, they settled on this particular breakfast item to present to Yuzu.

The mixer judged them for their culinary sins…

Everything had been going so well, Ichigo knew he shouldn't have, but he turned away for two seconds to look out the window. Two, literal seconds. It had been such a beautiful day that day. No hollow activity or annoying calls from Soul Society. Even the weather was cooperating by giving them a cloudless sky and near perfect temperatures.

A scream startled him out of his musing and he turned only to find his father's sleeve caught in the mixer.

"The hell?!" he groused, watching as the mixer tried vainly to keep mixing. His father's face had turned ashen, and his eyes were roughly the size of dinner plates, the man's jaw slightly slacken. Unfortunately, his old man hit every button except the off button.

There was a ripping sound and Isshin's wrist was returned safely to him. However, because the speed of the mixer had been accidently risen, due to Isshin ineffective attempt at putting an end to the madness, the bowl could not keep its contents in any longer.

The batter splattered _everywhere._

That had to be a World Record, right? It had hit the ceiling and Yuzu's beloved house plant Margaret who was another casualty of war. That was World Record worthy if he had anything to say about it.

"Dammit!" he groused, effectively covered from head to toe in the pancake batter. He managed to turn the machine off though by this point it wasn't going to help. The orange haired teen looked over at the state of his father who mirrored his batter covered visage quite well, and they both wore the exact same scowl. Though Isshin's was more heartbroken than miffed. It was at times like this when Ichigo realized how much he looked like his dad. The future didn't look pretty…

"What are we going to do?" his father turned to him and asked in such a calm voice that Ichigo was taken aback. His eye twitched before he threw his arms up into the air.

"Hell if I know!" he groused, moving to collect the ingredients and start anew.

After hastily throwing the ingredients together the two set off to face their arch nemesis once more. The mixer gleamed at them in greeting.

Forget hollows, this mixer was proving quite the foe to both the former captain and current substitute shinigami. Maybe they should start using these things to combat hollows instead…

"We can do this," Ichigo suddenly said aloud, and winced at how stupid he sounded. It was like he was giving a pep talk right before some life threatening battle. He needed to end this madness now before all of his dignity was lost on this soulless machine.

He glanced over at his father who nodded his head a couple of times before turning to look at the batter covered appliance.

The battle was hard fought. Ichigo honestly though that the mixer was going to best them in the end, but they had overcome. Victory was theirs, for now.

Next up was putting the batter into a frying pan.

Somehow Ichigo figured that this was going to be ten times worse. Mostly do to there being flames involved.

They carefully dolloped a bit of the batter into the pan and for a while everything was running smoothly. Isshin was doing a pretty good job once he got into the rhythm of things. There were a few burnt edges occasionally but everything still looked edible.

Unfortunately, their luck ran out once more.

Ichigo was beginning to think that the kitchen had a mind of its own in general and did not like them messing around in here while Yuzu was gone. She was the Queen of this area and her subjects were not too fond of these interlopers attempting to make breakfast.

One of the pancakes caught fire. As if it had just given up on being a slightly sugary breakfast item and just decided to spontaneously combust.

Isshin moved it to the sink where it continued to smoke and sizzle angrily.

Before Ichigo could turn the sink on to quell the flames, the front door suddenly opened and the voices of Karin and Yuzu drifted into the room.

Crap, they had run out of time!

Quickly they removed the pancakes and turned to stove off, scurrying to place the breakfast items onto a plate in a stack.

Syrup, crap, they had forgotten syrup! Ichigo wasn't sure they even had any in the house right now.

He looked through all the cabinets and found just enough to put on top.

Pouring the contents on top, which was a lot slower than he wanted, because syrup, they made it just as Karin and Yuzu walked into the room.

The light haired girl's eyes widened at the sight.

"Uh…surprise?" Ichigo mumbled, tipping the syrup back up after the first pancake had been covered.

Honey colored eyes blinked a few times as she took in, well, _everything._ The batter all over the walls, her father in her apron…both her father and brother covered in various ingredients, mostly batter, and there was something smoking in the sink…Hm, there was also a stack of pancakes on the table.

"Otou-san, why are you wearing my apron, why is the sink smoking…and is that batter on the walls?" she asked, curious more than anything.

"Yes," they both said at the same time to the very last inquiry. The other two could be explained later. A heavy silence filled the air for a moment and Karin face palmed.

"We wanted to surprise you with a meal," Karin said, she really should have stayed with their father rather than Ichigo…Probably would have ended better. "We just wanted to show you some appreciation since you do everything."

Yuzu was silent for quite some time and all three of her family members began to fidget nervously. Was she sad, happy, mad? Right now they honestly could not tell, but she was trembling.

The girl lifted her head up and there was a large smile on her face as tears dotted the corners of her eyes.

"Thank you!" she said with enough bright cheer to light up a power plant.

"No, thank you," their father said, smiling warmly down at her.

"Yeah," Ichigo said, scratching the back of his head. "And don't worry about the kitchen, we'll take care of it…"

"Seriously, no need to thank us," Karin said, grabbing her sister's shoulders. "It's the least we could do."

The other two nodded their agreement.

Isshin pulled out the chair for his light haired daughter and she took her seat with a thank you.

All three waited with baited breath as she gingerly cut into the first pancake and took a bite. Her smile grew even bigger.

"I love it!"

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 _End_


End file.
